ISRO invites proposals for space experiments

ISRO is moving a step ahead with the plans to reach out to Venus. It has asked for proposals to be submitted to conduct experiments on the plant.The Announcement of Opportunity (AO) is for space experiments by institutions in the country & the last date for receiving the proposals is May 19, 2017.

Those sending the proposals may be currently involved in planetary exploration studies, or development of science instruments for space, or willing to develop the experiments, the ISRO said in an announcement on its website. The expedition to Venus may be a orbiter mission. ISRO has not set any time frame for this and sources indicate that this may not happen until 2020. The planet is closer to Sun and is exposed to higher solar radiations.

Since both planets are believed to be sharing a common origin of being formed out of a condensing nebulosity around 5 billion years ago, Venus is often described as the ‘twin sister’ of the Earth because of the similarities in size, mass, density, bulk composition and gravity.

The payload capability of the proposed satellite is likely to be 175 kg with 500W of power, ISRO said that these values are to be tuned based on the final configuration.

The ISRO said that in spite of great progress made in exploring Venus, there still exist gaps in our basic understanding about surface/sub-surface features and processes, super rotation of Venusian atmosphere and its evolution and interaction with solar radiation/solar wind .A mission to explore Venus was first mentioned in the Department of Space demands for grants 2017–18.